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Saturday, 9 August 2014

ARC Review: Winterspell by Claire Legrand

The clock chimes midnight, a curse breaks, and a girl meets a prince . . . but what follows is not all sweetness and sugarplums.

New York City, 1899. Clara Stole, the mayor's
ever-proper daughter, leads a double life. Since her mother's murder, she has
secretly trained in self-defense with the mysterious Drosselmeyer.

Then, on Christmas Eve, disaster strikes.

Her home is destroyed, her father abducted--by
beings distinctlynothuman. To find him, Clara journeys to
the war-ravaged land of Cane. Her only companion is the dethroned prince
Nicholas, bound by a wicked curse. If they're to survive, Clara has no choice
but to trust him, but his haunted eyes burn with secrets--and aneedshe
can't define. With the dangerous, seductive faery queen Anise hunting them,
Clara soon realizes she won't leave Cane unscathed--if she leaves at all.

Inspired by The Nutcracker, Winterspellis
a dark, timeless fairy tale about love and war, longing and loneliness, and a
girl who must learn to live without fear.

Review:

***I received the eBbook free as a review copy from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review***

When I started this book I can’t say I was very familiar
with the nutcracker story and worried how much I would understand. However in
the end there were very few references (that I picked up at least) so it felt
like a completely original story which I appreciated, but people looking for more
precise retellings might not.

It did explain everything very thoroughly from the
surroundings to the characters emotions which may have just been Legrand’s
style of writing, but still managed to miss out a lot of details that I’d
consider important including the
background story of Concordia which is effectively the “real world”. You spend
a considerable amount of time there at the start but it seemed to be a very
long-winded introduction to the characters rather than anything else.

The characters, where
do I even begin? I say this in as polite a way as possible but I like none
of them. At all. Clara in particular because she annoyed the hell out of me,
simple as that. With no female role model I can understand where her
vulnerability comes from, but she’s then taught fighting skills with all sorts
of weaponry, so much so that I expected more from her when the time came to put
them to the test. But what does she do? She bursts into useless tears and lets
people walk all over her too terrified to fight back. The only times she does
is when it’s convenient for the plot, not because her character’s developed or strengthened
for the better.

Nicholas is one of the characters that took advantage of
Clara because even though he’s supposed to be the heartthrob love interest he’s,
and I have to say it; a complete douche.
He’s watched her grow up and you’re meant to believe he has feelings for her
but then the second he realises she’s useful to him, he turns and stabs her in
the back. Nothing subtle about it, he was going to take away her free-will and use
it for his own selfish aims. Only when he finally
gets his head round what he did wrong he thinks an apology is all it takes to
erase everything, worse yet is Clara goes along with it! If she had just a
little self-respect she’d kick Nicholas to the curb and refuse anything to do
with him. So of course she doesn’t, what more did you expect from the girl who
blames everything on herself?

The rest of the characters did nothing to make them stand out
for me personally, and when I look back what stood out most is how much I
disliked them above all else. It’s why this book only got 3 stars (me being
generous considering I had no emotional connection to the characters or the
story). However if you like a long and detailed story about two characters you
will quickly grow to hate, go ahead and pick Winterspell up.

Favourite Quotes:

“You’re powerful,
Clara. Or you could be, if you would let go of your fear long enough to realize
it.”

“His eyes shone with
an anguish Clara understood well. Loss, horrible loss. Pain and anger, and the
world being pulled out from beneath one’s feet.”

“She had forgotten how
to care about the city that had taken so much from her. Forgetting was the only
way she had found to keep moving every day.”

“So many stories yet to be told, so many
secrets to be unearthed. It would happen soon; Clara would make sure of it, and
if Nicholas tried to evade her, well, she still had her daggers.”

“You cannot shy away from yourself. Look the
world in the eye, and it can do nothing to hurt you.”

Disclaimer

I can guarantee that all of my reviews are honest, which includes the reviews I have written based on review copies I have received which are clearly specified. The fact that they are review copies has no impact on my thoughts and opinions stated in the review. I do not receive any form of monetary compensation for my reviews from authors/publishers.